Sakura
has to fix this. That's her job. What do you do when you can't
fix it? What do you do? Finding out what to do... doing it
somehow, doing something... That's her job too. She's not in
the habit of acknowledging death or just letting it happen.

Doing
nothing isn't an option. She has to get down in the blood and agony
and shattered bone and somehow put it all back together.

A
thankless job. A necessary job. She is the brains of Team 7, the
one who gets it's headaches. Naruto is it's heart. Sasuke? Well,
Sasuke is it's wound. It's constant wound. Fatal or not, bleeding
or not. Frustrating her. But she has to fight on anyway, right to
the bloodied flatline end. She can't wash her hands of this.

Not
just because of her calling now, which changes everything about who
and what she used to be. Now saving people and pulling them back
from the brink is a religion. It's a Buddhist teaching. It's a hard
science. And not just that... It's because Naruto is Sakura's
husband. And because Naruto is hurting. Because Naruto isn't the
only one hurting. Because Sakura has always had to hold the two
volatile edges of Team 7 together. Because she's the voice of
reason. Because of all of this. Sasuke is Sakura's problem now- she
can't just do nothing.

She has
all her clinical education and skill to diagnose him. Heal him. But
it's for naught.

And
there's actually a parallel, she thinks. There is a time when the
doctor just isn't allowed to heal the patient.

So
that's the framework she uses. That's how she helps it all make
sense to herself, because she most of all has had to grow up.
She'd really like to be mad as hell at Sasuke. She'd like to love
him desperately. She'd like to pour her heart and soul into that
bottomless leaking wound, knowing the transfusion would just drip out
another part of him, another open slashmark, as he just stubbornly
bleeds himself out. He won't even lift one damn finger to
help himself. Sakura feels her temper heating up and she can't
afford to be this childish. She has to hold it together.

Someone
has to rise above this. That someone will have to be her.

Sakura
has to stand back, now. She has to do just that, nothing. She has
to let Naruto and Sasuke handle their own problems.

Doesn't
she?

It
makes no damn sense. She can't get her head around it. She's
bone-weary of this... all of this.

There's
a medical vocabulary for this helplessness. The confidentiality laws
won't let her go fishing for Sasuke's file, but in her head it's
like the paperwork they give to the genin kids when they go on their
first missions. She pictures his form. There's a section with a
box you can check off. Do-not-resuscitate.

I
request that in the event my heart and breathing should stop, no
person shall attempt to resuscitate me. This order is effective until
it is revoked by me. Being of sound mind, I voluntarily execute this
order, and I understand its full import.

So on.

It even
sounds like Sasuke. It sounds exactly like something he would
say.

That's
one reason. That's the framework Sakura puts it in. People
choose for themselves, way back when they first step into their
teams. They choose. Save me, or don't save me. Check the box or
not.

And
Sakura has had it, had it with Sasuke. She knows exactly when it may
have happened. Was it when Naruto limped home from a run-in with the
latest Akatsuki psychotic? This one had tried to gut him down the
margin of the spiral-seal, as if to yank the Kyuubi from his flesh.
Or so Sakura thought.

Turned
out that he'd run into Sasuke instead, Sasuke's blade had been in the
crossfire, one of those Akatsuki crazies had been Uchiha Itachi.
Maybe Sasuke was hot on his brother's trail, and maybe he lost his
obsessive battle. Maybe he needed a consolation prize, a chance to
carve up her husband instead? Sasuke had split Naruto open, almost
killed him, and for what? What? Fun?

So
Sakura has had it with Sasuke. She's a trained clinician now.
She could explain it any way you wanted. She just ran out of
patience. She wasn't like Naruto. Time... love, compassion, energy,
her ability to give life and healing back into shattered bones and
flesh, mend ruined limbs back together, all of that: it's finite.
She has to decide where that energy will go. She can't waste it.
She can't throw good energy after bad, losing her whole day's
chakra fighting to bring back someone who will just lie down and die
anyway.

In
particular.. in particular.. if that person does it on damn
purpose.

So
Sakura has had it.

So,
when Naruto comes home furious and bloodied, his nose smashed across
his face, she knows exactly what's happened. Even if she couldn't
spot the exact likeness of Sasuke's knuckles in burst capillaries on
her husband's face. She heals it and washes the blood away. She
puts Naruto to bed and gets him some painkillers for the residual
soft tissue damage. She goes on as she has before, calm and
collected, because Naruto is still putting up with Sasuke and someone
has to keep Sasuke from destroying everything. That person
will be Sakura. She's ready to be the heavy now. She has to make
tough choices all the time. This is how their team works, Naruto is
it's heart and she's it's cold logical brain. She makes tea for
herself and Naruto, and tries to cheer him up. And it's all fake
because inside she's seething and she has had it.

She
knows where Sasuke is staying. Everyone in the damn village knows,
Sasuke can't clear his throat without half the ANBU swarming on him.
It's a shame, it's an everlasting shame and a blight on her
team. She feels like she failed it, she failed Naruto, she failed
something she should have been able to do. She doesn't grieve for
Sasuke, she grieves for her sense of faith in her own ability to
heal. She can't grieve for him anymore, she ran out of tears long
ago. She just couldn't keep the lie going. She'd had it with
him, he pushed her too far. She had to cut this damn artery, this
team heart-connection, cut it off like a torn limb before it emptied
her own heart and she just bled herself dry.

Had
it. So she bangs on his door with the hard side of her fist.

To her
surprise, Sasuke answers. He looks horrible, lank hair and bloodshot
eyes. For a second, for one little second the medic in her
reaches out and wants to know is he sleeping enough? Is he drinking?
He's not eating enough, he needs a good hit of sunlight too; and she
has to clamp her discipline down on those thoughts. She can't afford
this sympathy. He's burned her too many times.

And
this time, he blinks like a startled nocturnal creature in the sudden
spill of daylight into his darkened rooms.

Then
his eyes focus and he says something, it might have been 'Oh,' it
might have been disappointed. He slams the door in her face.

But
Sakura is not quite the same girl she was seven years ago, when she
begged him from the bottom of her heart. Her heart is pressed into
service now, and her compassion is for the people who need and
actually want to be healed. She leans in and speaks, close to
the scuffed peephole and it's halo of chipped paint. "I can
break the door down if you want." She knows he can hear her.

He
opens the door. He doesn't even bother to scowl at her. The medic
in her is less concerned about him not giving her the attitude, the
usual Sasuke rudeness. And the heart in her is hardened from one
too many slaps, just too many rejections. I'm sick of trying.
She could say that to him. But there's no point.

She
ends up just staring at him. And he stares back, paused in-between
breaths. He's paused, it seems, between letting her come in or
shutting the door on her again. She puts her foot in the doorjamb,
just in case. He takes that in with one cool little flicker of his
gaze. His expression doesn't change, but.. this Sasuke, the Sasuke
that's here now, home, is not quite the ice statue, the stone-faced
little boy he was before. As an adult, his mask is starting to
crack. His eyes give away bits and pieces now. She sees exhaustion
mostly. And a kind of desolation. He's not the same. And it's a
real pain, because she needs to stay focused. She can't afford to
feel sorry for him. Hate is love battered into scar tissue. She
needs her love and her strength and her compassion. She needs it for
the people who need her.

So
are you going to admit you need me?

He lets
her in. Eyes down, almost guiltily, he lets her in.

He
makes tea. She almost expects him to not do it right, but he makes
it the traditional way, the whisk and the iron bowl-cups, and does it
perfectly. She sits at his kitchen table and watches him. He works
in silence. When he brings the cups to the table, he places hers
near her, but not exactly in front of her. It's more to the
center of the table, like he hesitates before any kind of connection,
or closeness... and Sakura feels irritation again, and is relieved.
She wants to say you're an adult, stop it. But maybe he can't
help it. Maybe it's just the way he is. He was alone for so long.
Maybe he's just socially broken and it would be cruel to yell at him
for it.

"Do
you mean to be rude?" she asks, too coldly. Too much annoyance
in her voice.

But it
annoys him too, and he frowns darkly. The same old Sasuke-frown,
just the way it was. His dark eyes flicker up to her once, quickly.
Then back to his cup. He takes one sip and manages to make it look
disapproving.

But it
will just crack her temper open if she has to fight to get a
conversation out of him, so she falls back on her medic spiel. Are
you sleeping well, Sasuke-kun? He frowns more, and sips and
after a long moment mutters that no, he isn't. She asks why. He
frowns. The conversation runs like a rusted engine, all popping
gears and skipping beats and hesitance and reluctance to move at all.
But he answers. Because he says.

"Because
why?" she prods. This is new. Her being the authority, him
being the guilty smaller person, the one somehow always in the wrong.

"You're
not my doctor." he mutters into his cup.

"Tsunade-sama
says you need all the doctors you can get." Tsunade actually
has said that, snorting into her own coffee cup in the morning when
she and Sakura have time for chitchat. Tsunade has said it more than
once.

And it
irritates him, too. It seems to shake something loose in him. He
puts down his cup and says to her, straight out: "Why did you
marry Naruto?"

Abrupt
and rude... but not quite the same old Sasuke rudeness. Now there's
a hard line of jealousy in it. He's springing leaks.

She
looks back at him evenly, at the signs of illness set into his tired
face, his too-pale body. And the way he favors his left arm, he's
pulled something in the right. He's not bothered to ice or rest it..
of course he hasn't. He's trained on it.. so stupid, does he
want to do himself some permanent damage? Will that make him feel
better? Sakura can see the shadow of swelling, the angry knotted
tendon. And she can think of many things she could say to answer his
question. Because we're in love. Because I love him. Because we
need eachother. Because it worked for them, it still works, and
they find a way to be happy.

What
she doesn't say is Jealous? Because that's just too damn
juvenile. She's not going to sink to that level.

"Because
I love him." she says, finally, holding his gaze. She says it
factually, because it is a fact. Simple unvarnished truth. She
loves him.

Sasuke
grimaces, silently. The elegant lines of his face crumple, then he
smoothes them out. His eyebrows raise witheringly. With a hint of
ice he says "I see." Sakura hears the invisible question
and takes pity on him. Indulges herself, at that.

He
tries to suppress it, lock it behind his eyes just a second too late.
For that second, it spills out. And mostly it's anger. Anger,
actually, that Sakura can't decipher. Whatever's going on in his
head is coming from his own secret private world. He speaks, and she
almost jumps, she didn't expect him to reply at all. "I thought
you would be stupid enough to wait."

She
snorts. Recovers herself.

"I
guess you thought wrong." she says, coolly. Because here she
is. The little girl he just didn't have time for.

Or
maybe he really did like her a bit, sometimes she really wondered...
but he still left, he still did all that horrible constant abusive
crap to Naruto, and he's still doing it. She has diagnostic
names and Freudian theory, psychological weapons to name the demons,
the things he does. She can vanquish something she can name.
She can call him on it, and she can make him face it. She's
not helpless and lost anymore.. And Sasuke? He hasn't changed. And
she has. She's put her life together. She's walking in the
sun. He's drowning in his own fury. She allows herself one moment
of that same old superiority. The kind that used to float around him
like an invisible mist. They both know what's happened. They both
know this power shift. They both know he's going wrong, she doesn't
have to say it. He knows it.

He
looks away.

And she
feels bad, she feels like she just kicked a misbehaving puppy, let
her temper get the better of her. Or, more accurately, she just hurt
someone who is already in pain, who may not fully understand how much
he hurts others. Or maybe, he's just in so much pain for so long that
he's numbed to everything and just can't work these basic things out.
She sighs.. and she sags her shoulders forward slightly. Her hair
trails down her face and slowly swings over the immaculately clean
tabletop. If it was anyone else, then she'd apologize. But she has
her limits.

She
just changes the subject. She comes right to the point. "What
did you say to Naruto?"

He gets
up and reaches for her empty teacup.

She
grabs it before he can, and makes it look nonchalant.. and slow...
and elegant. Unconcerned. There's a weird polarity between them
now, their roles flip without warning, like little schisms in
gravity.

He just
takes his own cup to the sink. As he washes it he says "None of
your business."

The
hell it isn't her business.

But
getting angry won't help. She'll scream at him, or worse she'll cry,
because this whole open wound in her team is such a damn shame,
it's so useless, it's so preventable. It's so damn painful.
It's weeping blood and sweat and tears every day for a whole
eight years and counting. Sasuke comes back, but it's still not
right. And he won't heal. He won't let her heal him. He won't let
Team 7 heal. He won't let her.

"Stop
it." she says to him. The way her mother used to say when she
was fed up. Just stop it! She hears the same exasperation
and anger in her own voice.

If he
gives her any of that cool act, that averted icy little nose-turning,
she'll get up and knock his damn teeth out. Try me, she thinks, not
looking at him. Just try it. That moment, a million moments
before, freshly now, she's sick of it. She's had it.

"I'm
not going to let you do this anymore." she says to him, and
looks down at her faint daylight shadow on the table, her cup wet
with cooling water and speckled with tiny flecks of shiny wet green.
His whole spin and span apartment, just a bit too
obsessive-compulsive clean to be comfortable. She looks back up at
him. "I'm not going to let it happen."

What's
she going to do? What's she going to do about it? She
doesn't care. She'll do something. She's had it, had it
with this. She's tired of seeing Naruto fight so hard for his
enthusiasm and to hold this relationship together. She's tired of
stitching up Naruto's battered body and his bruised feelings and
wiping blood and bruises away from his cheeks. She's tired of being
scared that Sasuke is changing him, that the whole exhausting battle
is just going on too hard and too long, that Naruto is growing
emotional scar tissue of his own. Sasuke hurting her is one thing,
she can take that. It's Sasuke hurting Naruto, open and silly and
caring and fun-loving eternal-optimist Naruto. Naruto who has fought
body and soul, nine years, for a man who spits in his face. She
has had it.

No
more.

She
tries to feel nothing but anger, but it's useless. It's still
Sasuke. She loves him. She wouldn't be here if she didn't love him.
She couldn't get this blindingly angry with him, if she
didn't love him.. if she could just stop caring. Naruto is an open
bleeding heart of connection and compassion, and she has to be the
hardcase. She has to step in when it's time to just cut it
out. When there's just no hope of resuscitation for the
relationship... She looks at Sasuke and wishes she could just give
him up as hopeless, beyond her help. Beyond all help. Just
beyond them. She could stop then. She could let him go.

But she
can never let him go. She's in love too. Just as bad as Naruto.
Just as locked-in-forever, they are a team for the rest of their
lives. Sasuke may want to smash those bonds and fade away, but he's
one member and he's outvoted.

"Come
home with me." she says.

She
gets up and walks, slowly so he won't feel threatened, slowly up
behind him.

She
puts her hand on his shoulder.

He
tilts his head sideways to glance back at her. "Bring it here."
he says, meaning her cup. She brings it, and watches his shoulders
and forearms move under his shirt as he washes it. He dries both
cups, the pieces of the kettle, the whisk. He puts everything away,
neat as pin, everything in it's place. Total silence. He doesn't
even break breathing rhythm.

She
stands in place, a bit behind him, and she watches. He turns to her.
He looks back at her. His face is almost blank... flat black,
but the eyes leak out something close to peevishness, or guilt. It's
almost a pout. He then walks past her and to the front door of his
apartment. He bends and puts on his sandals.

She
follows.

And she
takes him home. Her home. Back to Naruto... their cheap but
comfortable apartment. Whatever warmth and comfort they can provide.

"I
don't have to do this." he grumbles. They're just leaving the
courtyard of his building.

She
doesn't have to not break his nose, either.

He gets
it. A sidelong glance from her is enough. He shoves his hands into
his pockets and scowls, but he understands.

I'm
not going to let you die, damn you.

Tsunade's
words. Tsunade broke the do not resusciate order. Tsunade taught
Sakura to have a healthy disrespect of death and those who seek it.

Sasuke
will fight her. For all she knows, the box on his form is checked.
And he won't just let her shock his heart back to life that easily.

But she
got one gasp of breath out of him. She can find a pulse. She can
start to stitch him back together. His heart beats sure and hard in
clean echos through his hand. She'll breathe life back into him
yet. She's not going to let him destroy them and himself and the
team and everything. She's had it.

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